ANOMALOUS RECORDS

Peter Ablinger
"Grisailles (1-100) für drei Klaviere (1991-93)"
CD
$17.00
Hat Hut Records Ltd. (Switzerland)
hat(now)ART 132
"The throbbing standstill as changing tinge of light, as a slow change (of light and therefore of space and time), fifty minutes long. Grisailles 1-100 for three pianos consists of various levels of overlapping sound-layers. Repeated octaves and small, barely audible sounds made by fingers darting across the keys seem to be two of these levels. Peter Ablinger composed twenty-four layers to start with - each one following its own time and structure -, before these were being combined in a preliminary score." - Christian Scheib. performed by Hildegard Kleeb, piano. edition of 3000.

John Luther Adams
"In the White Silence"
CD
$13.00
New World Records (U.S.)
80600-2
"Since 1978, Alaska has been John Luther Adams's (b. 1953) home and a major inspirational source for most of his compositions. Almost all of his compositions evoke natural phenomena, in particular the wintry Northern landscapes, light, and colors as well as elements of indigenous Alaskan cultures. Adams's music thus shares aesthetic features with nature-inspired works of such composers as Debussy, Ives, Sibelius, and Hovhaness. Due to the use of certain 'minimalist' strategies Adams's music is often classified as 'minimalist' or 'post-minimalist.' He avoids expressive musical rhetoric, prefers reduced and elementally simple musical material, and frequently uses sustained tones and static textures. Adams's compositions embrace just intonation, consonance, and modal harmony, and they often feature a meditative quality and extended length reminiscent of Feldmanesque dimensions. Like many of Adams's previous works, In the White Silence (1998) is an example of his concept of 'sonic geography,' through which he attempts to realize the notion of music as place and place as music and reveals his obsession with the 'treeless, windswept expanses of the Arctic.' The title of the work thus points to Alaskan landscapes in a general sense. And like Dream in White on White, it specifically refers to Adams's fascination with the color of white, a dominant feature of Arctic landscapes. As Adams explains in his preface to the score: 'White is not the absence of color. It is the fullness of light. As the Inuit have known for centuries, and as painters from Malevich to Ryman have shown us more recently, whiteness embraces many hues, textures, and nuances.' In the White Silence slowly unfolds over the course of about seventy-five minutes. The work's extended length and non-dramatic structure suggest the idea of music as an 'immeasurable space' and reflect the desire to transcend the conventional boundaries of musical composition. In the White Silence, a large-scale work of structural refinement, balance and arresting beauty, gently envelops the listener and thus becomes a musical presence equivalent to that of a vast tundra landscape." - label description.

Afflux
"Bordeaux TNT"
CD
$10.00
and/OAR / Alluvial Recordings (U.S.)
and/all1
"Long after the first two releases issued by Ground Fault and Edition . . ., and/OAR & Alluvial Recordings are pleased to finally be able to present the final release in a trilogy covering the sonic expeditions of the French location-specific electroacoustic trio Afflux (Eric La Casa, Jean-Luc Guionnet & Eric Cordier). This release summarises what was initially a 6 hour performance / installation / radio broadcast that occurred at the TNT cultural centre in Bordeaux, France. The TNT centre is situated inside a former shoe manufacturing building. With several hundred meters of cables, the exterior and interior of the building were recorded using several different condenser and contact microphones, modified and mixed in real time on a 32 channel mixing desk. Simultaneously, the live mix was played into the concert hall / space using 8 channels for 8 loudspeakers. While the improvisers were on the upper level, the audience was listening and walking around on the lower level. The final mix for the CD was edited by Eric La Casa." - label description.

Agencement
"Boxe Consonantique"
CD
$16.00
Pico (Japan)
Pico-04
in the 1980's, Agencement published two mysterious LPs, followed by a CD, on the Pico label and then disappeared. after an absence of 8 years, Hideaki Shimada returned with a new work of fractured violin concrete recorded in 1993 and 1999. equally as special as the earlier releases, this is a dense mass of sound created with the use of only violin, magnetic tape, pico strings and electronics. if anything this release recalls the early junk noise period of Merzbow, but equally stands on its own. since his reappearance, he has been seen playing live with Kuwayama Kiyoharu and Kiyoshi Mizutani.

Agitation Free
"The Other Sides of Agitation Free"
CD
$14.00
Garden Of Delights (Germany)
GOD 032
"When Burghard Rausch and Michael Hoenig left Agitation Free in 1974, the band was almost in a state of apparent death. Yet Michael Günther and Gustl Lütjens eventually decided not to give up and so, during the autumn and winter of that very year, joined by some new musicians from their scene, they would give it a try in the recording studio. Thanks to Manfred Opitz and Gustl Lütjens, the outcome was a set of rather jazzy tracks which were, however, rejected by Vertigo as being 'unsaleable'. On 'The other sides' these tracks can be heard for the first time, supplemented by extracts from their political-rock radio play 'Störenfried' ('trouble-maker'), it too from 1974. Those are rather unusual sounds for a band like Agitation Free, some of the tracks even featuring vocals. After that disappointment the band eventually broke up. With 36-page booklet." - label description.

Agog
"Dust is Their Food and Clay Their Meat"
LP
$15.00
Anomalous Records (U.S.)
NOM 5
Starting his music career in the early 1980s in the collective Points of Friction alongside Joseph Hammer and being on the fringes of the L.A.F.M.S. group, Damian Bisciglia has gone on to create a body of work only available on cassette and generally only heard among the cassette culture. His work is amazingly developed though, finding a style incorporating collage, improvisation, and diverse number of unique sources including contact mic as instrument unto itself, multitracked loops, shells, balloons, metal heater, springs, matchbox car, and many others. In addition to this, he has in recent years begun to create 'creatures' built from various found materials. A very talented artist whose work has long impressed me and whom I am glad to finally help bring out a more widely available release. "This LP is strictly an analog affair and is 96% free of conventional musical instruments and electronic effects. The sound sources (instruments?) are primarily acoustic and would include: metal eraser shield played with human breath, cardboard speaker cone bowed with a coat hanger, blow-dryer heating element, hard plastic combs, a broken TV set (unplugged), sea shells etc. These objects are amplified using a variety of contact microphones. All pieces are built upon a 4-track reel to reel with the exception of the final track, which is a real time improvisation using a wooden laundry hamper still encased in it's plastic shrink-wrap." - Damian Bisciglia.

Christian Alati, Giuseppe Ielasi & Ruggero Radaele
CD
$14.00
Sonoris (France)
SON-14
"This new project from Giuseppe Ielasi (from the Italian label Fringes) gathers two guitarists and one percussionist. The two prepared guitars are used as a sound generator for electronic devices with, on top of these, subtle (mostly) metallic percussion. From quite and minimal ambiance to more strong and electric pieces, this record is a very good example of this new school of improvised music influenced by electroacoustic techniques." - label description. comes in Digipak.

Eric Aldéa
"Saturno o Cipolla?
CD
$12.00
0101 Music (France)
0101.01
"Wreaths of flavored tobacco, spice scents in a smooth summer evening. From the very first notes, 'Saturno O Cipolla?' sets down the listener into the heart of a mystic orient where fragrances quell both body and mind. Freed from its heaviness, you only need to let yourself go to perceive the marine vibrations of the haunting strings, barely troubled by the flow of electronic signals. Drones and vibrations, lost echoes, truncated messages, omnipresent though distant sounds of human commotion. Then, gaining altitude, taking off. Being carried along by the wind, eavesdropping pieces of foreign conversations, sometimes discovering the rhythm imposing its strength and fluidity. Signals multiply, meet, mingle one second and part the next to eventually join in the unlikely climax of this motionless journey. The strings, first troubled by the apparition of machines, can now cool down and resound in a slow though steady fade out. The only idea which comes to your mind then: press play and set out again. 'Saturno o Cipolla?' is Eric Aldea's first solo album. This is nevertheless not his first discographic experience. His productions with the band Deity Guns from 89 to 93 ('Trans-Line Appointment' was produced by Lee Ranaldo [Sonic Youth] in 92) and Bästard from 92 to 97 ('Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off' was produced by Andy Briant [Tortoise] in 97) are still references for many musicians around the world and classics for even more people enjoying music. After Bästard's split-up and two sabbatic years, Eric meets the choreographer Abou Lagraa and starts a close collaboration with his contemporary dance company called La Baraka. For the shows Les Deux, Violatus, Kraft and Nuit Blanche created between 1998 and 2000, he composed a music at the crossroads of electronic and contemporary music in his home studio with the collaboration of guests musicians (double bass, cello, violin...). If 'Saturno o Cipolla?' which compiles 7 extracts of these creations strikes us by its cohesion, that is because Eric Aldéa developed a strong personal universe which goes far beyond the limits of a mere musical illustration. He craves an original music which both generates strong emotions and allows the listener's imagination to wander freely among images and odours through his soundscapes. Eric is preparing the recording of a totally discographic project : the adaptation and reorchestration for strings and machines of 'Spiral Insana', an album which was recorded by Nurse With Wound in 1986. To be precise, we must add that Ici, d'ailleurs... is preparing a box set containing Bästard's complete discography plus live and unreleased tracks." - label description. comes in Digipak.

Alio Die
"Il Tempo Magico di Saturnia Pavonia"
CD
$14.00
Hic Sunt Leones (Italy)
HSL 023
very relaxing mixture of drones, loops, bells, small accordion, chen, tubes and flutes into dreamy and mystical soundscapes. "In this new CD Stefano Musso displays ten new tracks of powerful layers of both acoustic and real sounds. The sense of Magic inside the performing was invited and respected during rites of composition, and as usual it has guides of the creative process. Then spirits of life comes, inside a sensitive and creative Space, attitude is purified that which is deeply desired the focus of the soul, quiet and almost transparent is the mind. OK, this is deep music to listen meanwhile you are looking in front of the Fire, walking in the wildness, or when you need a deep and magic inspiration for poetry, painting, research, Love and meditation, and in every activities in which you need to expand time and sensibility, and to be really and totally present! oh, ... surely, you would be in the same time in different layers of consciousness, looking for some special gifts in order to magically convert this crazy time into a better one! Alio Die." - label description.

Alio Die
"Incantamento"
CD
$14.00
Hic Sunt Leones (Italy)
HSL 018
two long ambient tracks, the first over 54 minutes long blending gentle tones and instruments with natural recordings of insects and ambiance. in jewel case with organic matter instead of a tray card.

Alio Die
"Leaves Net"
CD
$14.00
Hic Sunt Leones (Italy)
HSL 019
a collection of old and new pieces, forming the third part of the trilogy that started with "The Hidden Spring" and "La stanze della Trancendenza". the old tracks, from "The flight of real image" 3" and the compilations "Of These Reminders", "Death Odors", "Régénération-Dégénerescense" and "Desire", are for the most part totally revised.

Alio Die
"Le stanze della Trascendenza"
CD
$14.00
Hic Sunt Leones (Italy)
HSL 016
"the second part of a trilogy (the first part is 'The Hidden Spring' out on Crowd Control Act) characterized by old sound sources I did several years ago, reworked now with modern technologies of digital multitrack recordings. likewise the origins of sounds is totally acoustic, while electronic processing, equalization, atmosphere and treatment plays an important role in composition." - from the liner notes. with instrumentation of sampler, textures, drones, voice, flute and field recordings.

Alio Die
"Password for Entheogenic Experience"
CD
$14.00
Hic Sunt Leones (Italy)
HSL 015
"a never ending drone of intense meditative music, with treated acoustic sounds and loops. Alio Die explore somewhere else places finding a sound support for psychoactive journeys." - from the back cover.

Costanzo Allione
"Fried Shoes Cooked Diamonds"
video
$20.00
Mystic Fire Video (U.S.)
B109
"A film by Costanzo Allione. Narrated by Allen Ginsberg. 1978, color, 55 min. Featuring Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Timothy Leary, Gregory Corso, Diane Di Prima, Peter Orlovksy, Meredith Monk, Amiri Baraka, Anne Waldman, Miguel Pinero, Miguel Algarin and Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Fried Shoes, Cooked Diamonds portrays a joyous reunion of Beat poets at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. With a very personal narration by Ginsberg, the film shows the warmth and ease of interchange between the poets. They read their poetry to each other, discuss their thoughts on writing, politics, religion and the adventure of consciousness, and partake in a very moving nuclear protest at Rocky Flats, where Corso reads his 'Bomb' and Ginsberg his 'Plutonium Ode'." - from the back cover. NTSC.

Alterations
"Voila Enough!"
CD
$12.00
Atavistic (U.S.)
ALP239CD
"Alterations was one of the premier British improvising groups of the 1970s. Comprised of four omnivorous multi-instrumentalists - Steve Beresford, David Toop, Terry Day and Peter Cusack - they represented an important crossing zone between abstraction and pop, incorporating elements of punk, indigenous musics and hip-hop (Toop wrote the influential study 'Rap Attack', as well as his more recent book 'Ocean of Sound') into their free play. Compiled and exhaustively annotated by Toop, Voila Enough! consists of previously unreleased music from '79-'81, packaged with a gallery of unpublished photos by Gerard Rouy." - label description.

Maryanne Amacher
"Sound Characters"
CD
$15.00
Tzadik (U.S.)
TZA 7043
"Marianne Amacher is one of electronic music’s truly legendary mavericks, whose music has been presented almost exclusively in huge spaces and installations for the past twenty years. This diverse collection of electronic soundscapes and 'ear-dances' was chosen by the composer especially for Tzadik to work in the more intimate settings of compact disc. Spectacular acoustical effects take you to expansive worlds of dancing difference tones and psychedelic sonorities. A rare release by one of the most reclusive and elusive of today's musical visionaries." - label description.

Oren Ambarchi & Johan Berthling
"My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights"
CD
$12.00
Häpna (Sweden)
H.10
"I guess these two musicians don't need long introductions: Ambarchi is well known for his work with guitars and Berthling is one of the members of Tape and, as far as I know, also involved with Häpna. This collaboration was done in Stockholm in 2002 and has been edited for this release. The one track has a duration of half an hour. Berthling plays harmonium and Ambarchi guitar and the work has a very straight layout: it's a drone piece, starting with harmonium. The tones are kept all the time, sometimes adding or subtracting a single note. One can hear the frequency of the pump underneath. Some time later the guitar is added, but it is extremely difficult to pinpoint the moment. The sounds merge so strongly together that they become one, slowly changing in the course of the piece. Were it not for the frequency range (high mids), one would probably dream away gently. But the sound is just too piercing for that. And it's up to the listener to decide whether this is good or not......" - Roel Meelkop in Vital Weekly.

Oren Ambarchi, Günter Müller & Voice Crack
"Oystered"
CD
$15.00
Audiosphere (Belgium)
AS 06
"Take three Swiss tourists. Feed them top notch Sydney rock oysters, fine Hunter Valley wines and get them into a recording studio with Oren Ambarchi. That was the challenge. This is the record. If Ambarchi, Müller and the Crack have one thing in common (beyond gastronomic excess), it is their ability to get extraordinary sounds out of everyday objects. This one day recording session at Big Jesus Burger in Sydney highlights the mutual approach they share. There's such cohesion, wholeness and single-mindedness to these pieces that makes identification of the individuals involved virtually impossible. So forget the 'Who's Doing What?' game. Close your eyes and play 'Where The Hell Am I?' ... rain forest, glacier, casino, ship's hull, bowling alley or five star restaurant?" - label description. packaged in "Super Jewel Box" (sort of a DVD case sized jewel case)

Oren Ambarchi & Martin Ng
"Reconnaissance"
CD
$16.00
Staubgold (Germany)
staubgold 15
"Reconnaissance is the first duo release by Australian composers Oren Ambarchi and Martin Ng from Sydney - a trilogy of pieces based upon the fluid architectural modulation of harmonics and resonances. Recalling the landmark experiments of the Sonic Arts Union (Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma), Ambarchi and Ng create an enigmatic tapestry of pulsing, shimmering and shifting sound which represents a subtle and compelling realignment of Eastern and Western minimalist traditions." - label description.

Charles Amirkhanian
"Walking Tune"
CD
$12.00
Starkland (U.S.)
ST-206
includes gong sounds sampled at Lou Harrison's home combined with musical saw, coffee grinder, guitar and strings; homage to Slonimsky with fragments of Varèse, German music box, komungo, cuckoo clock and cat sounds; group cheers for artists like Man Ray and Van Gogh; and an outdoor sound walk homage to Percy Grainger. "The art of audio collage has been reinvented here…A brilliant sense of imaginary space…" - Laurie Anderson from the back cover.

AMM
"at The Roundhouse"
CD
$12.00
Anomalous Records (U.S.)
ICES 01
The first release from the ICES concerts from August of 1972 in London. The International Carnival of Experimental Sound, or ICES '72 for short, was an ambitious festival sprung from the mind of Harvey "Job" Matusow (1926-2002). Jumping off from his associations with Source magazine, Harvey brought together over 300 artists from over 21 countries to perform in London, England over the course of two weeks in August of 1972. Based on the theme of Myth, Magic Madness and Mysticism, he assembled an amazing diversity of performers working in diverse range of audio-visual arts. Encompassing happenings, films, dance, a train ride, and the phantom soft pool table, the focus was on sound - specifically that of artists who were both composers and performers. Most of the concerts were held at The Roundhouse, a cavernous structure that was formerly a railroad engine house, and recorded by John Lifton and his assistants. Now, for the first time in 30 years, these recordings can be heard. AMM was formed in 1965 by Lou Gare, Eddie Prevost, Keith Rowe, and Lawrence Sheaff. The line-up swelled to also include Cornelius Cardew and Christopher Hobbs, and sometimes composer Christian Wolff. From 1971 up until 1976, AMM found itself stripped down to the duo of Prevost and Gare. After that time, Rowe replaced Gare, and Eddie and Keith have continued making AMMusic ever since, mostly with the help of John Tilbury, and occasionally others, and are still a powerful force. The aesthetic of AMM is that of improvised music freed from the constraints of musical style. Their sound is ever evolving and free from the ego of individual players. "Music from half a lifetime ago - that was a very good creative time musically and maybe a new generation will appreciate what we were doing then and still are doing now. Playing with Eddie in that format, just the two of us, was my most rewarding musical experience after the break up of the AMM quartet. When Eddie and Keith tried to get it together again with the four of us I could not go back to that after the freedom of the duo." - Lou Gare.

Gilbert Amy
"Une Saison en Enfer"
CD
$16.00
INA-GRM (France)
INA C 2004
electroacoustic interpretation of Arthur Rimbaud's poem of the same name. features Fusako Kondo (soprano), Carlos Roque Alsina (piano), Jean-Pierre Drouet (percussion), Gilbert Amy (electroacoustic keyboard), Daniel Teruggi (electroacoustic keyboard), and the voices of Edwige Parat (soloist), Nelly Borgeaud, Michel Hermon, Edweda Malapa, Jean Thibaudeau and the choir of Radio France. "I have distributed the poem between the three voices which represent the three aspects of Rimbaud the child-poet-man (child's voice, woman's voice, man's voice). To these three main voices, which are spoken by actors, I have added, somewhat more episodically, the voice of the writers Jean Thibaudeau who helped me select and structure the texts. At times the voices are treated linearly and at other times chorally and polyphonically. At still other times they are severely distorted by electronic means. In the last part the voice breaks into song, mirroring the spoken poem. The song consists of a soprano's voice and a child's voice recorded live, combined with fragments of recorded choral singing. The piano and percussion instruments provide a commentary and a counterpoint to the electroacoustic spoken material. They are the instrumental and rhythmic flesh. As for the electroacoustic material, it oscillates between 'pure artificial sound' (e.g., the synthesizer) and 'reworked sound of human origin.' This is in order to create what I consider a necessary ambiguity between the electronic domain and the instrumental domain." - Gilbert Amy from the liner notes. this CD is a different version of the piece than that released on LP in 1981 and features a new mix of the electroacoustics and computer music done by Christophe Germanique.

Anal Magic & Rev. Dwight Frizzell
"Beyond the Black Crack"
CD
$15.00
Paradigm Discs (England)
PD 06
"Beyond the Black Crack was the concept of Reverend Dwight Frizzell, a musician, film maker, Doctor of Metaphysics and minister in the Universal Church of Life. It remains a little known classic, and one of the most unique listening experiences in modern experimental music. Recorded between 1974 and 1976 in locations as diverse as factories, the pyramid opposite Harry Truman's grave site as well as more 'conventional' concert settings. Beyond the Black Crack is a dark, dizzying and exhilarating journey through free jazz, electronics and environmental sound, all shattered by Frizzell's radical tape editing. This CD re-release adds further material to the original LP: - 'The Wandering Madness of Basilea', a suite from 1977 unheard until now, as well as unreleased material from the Black Crack sessions." - label description.

Anemone Tube
":Existence"
CD
$15.00
Auf Abwegen (Germany)
AATP09
"jewel case / 500 hand numbered copies / fold out color insert. :existence: as a great mix between rumbling noise and floating ambiance. four harsh tracks and three more dense and collage like works make this a varied and thrilling listen! Anemone Tube was founded in Summer of 1996 by Stefan Hanser who felt the urge to express deeper personal feelings and dreams. The audioworks from Anemone Tube vary a lot along with the different means Stefan Hanser uses as sound source and for manipulation and could easiest be described as industrial-, ambient- and noisescapes of organic and synthetic sounds. The use of constantly shifting and altering sounds and moods is possibly one of the most intriguing things about the audio creations of Anemone Tube with the purpose of trying to put the listener into a delirious mental state, to irritate, torment and caress him no matter if in a positive or negative way: to cause emotional reaction!" - label description.

Angel Provocateur
CD
$10.00
Ventricle (U.S.)
VENT-08
mysterious mixture of lovely French female voice (courtesy of Vanessa Harvey) with cosmic sound collage and processing from Thistle's Kelly. for fans of Mauve Sideshow, Torn Curtain, Thistle, Steeple of Fyre, and Minus Infinity.

Angel Provocateur
"Stars Below"
CD
$10.00
Ventricle (U.S.)
VENT-11
second album by trio of Vanessa Harvey (the ethereal French vocalist), Dusty Lee (of Mauve Sideshow fame) and Kelly Thistle (of a variety of other Ventricle acts like Minus Infinity). part of the 'silver series' on this label, it sports a beautiful foil cover with black print and is just as mysterious and spacey as the other two in the series (Torn Curtain and Minus Infinity). those who spend time hunting down the bygone oddities of years past, such as on the famed NWW list, would be wise not to let these recent CDs go by unnoticed.

Anima
CD
$13.00
Spalax (France)
SPALAXCD14530
reissue of their 1972 LP on Pilz. totally improvised music from Paul and Limpe Fuchs on a variety of their self invented instruments along with Austrian jazz avant-gardist Friedrich Gulda on piano and J.A. Rettenbacher on bass. Digipak.

animist orchestra
"wuwei"
CD
$12.00
Anomalous Records (U.S.)
NOM14
studio recording of Jeph Jerman's small sound orchestra with Dave Knott, Mike Shannon, Jeffery Taylor, Robert Millis and Marina Granger. "in seattle in 1996, i began giving performances using mainly natural objects as my 'instruments'. after many such performances, two friends suggested (independently of one another), that i might try doing it with a group. as this idea had occurred to me a few years previously, i thought perhaps they were right. in june of 1999, the animist orchestra began its history as a working group. we got together nearly every week for the next three months, to play and discuss our playing. our first performance was given in eric lanzillotta's living room for a small group of friends, and was well received. from the beginning, the focus of the orchestra has been on listening, and improvising in the moment. a group of people truly playing together and focusing intently on the present can be a powerful thing. the use of natural objects (stones, shells, pine cones etc.) as opposed to more conventional musical instruments, can help the players to not fall back on learned habits of musical play. there is no canon or book of rules to refer to when using everyday things as sound makers, and this may facilitate the removal of actions arising from taste and memory. during the initial period of discovery for the orchestra, dave knott made the observation that, when when playing and focusing on the sound being made, it was 'like the spirit of the thing is telling you ho it wants to move'. mike shannon once told me that when i play i seem to be animating the objects with my hands. i think these comments explain the name of the orchestra better than i could. i wanted to make a CD of the orchestra to document our work together, and to show my admiration and gratitude for the friends who have agreed to join. i don't think they knew what they were getting into." - jeph jerman.

George Antheil
"Ballet Mécanique and other works for player pianos, percussion, and electronics"
CD
$12.00
Electronic Music Foundation (U.S.)
EMF CD 020
"George Antheil's Ballet Mécanique, a wild, highly rhythmic composition combining industrial age sounds and jazz, is one of the most notorious musical moments of the 20th century. Antheil was an American composer living in Paris in the 1920s. He composed the first version of Ballet Mécanique in 1924 for 4 player pianos, then almost immediately expanded the instrumentation to 3 xylophones, 4 bass drums, tam-tam, 2 pianos, siren, 3 airplane propellors, 7 bells, and 16 synchronized player pianos. He revised it again for performances in Paris in 1926 and New York in 1927. Following the New York performance, so badly received that it almost ruined his career, he visited Berlin, then went to Hollywood where he pursued a career as film composer. He revised the work again in 1953, and that version, more practical than earlier versions, has been performed several times. The expanded 1924 version, however, was never performed until its premiere, produced by Paul Lehrman, at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell in November 1999. And this CD, a recording of that performance, is a major event! Also on the CD: John Cage and Lou Harrison's 'Double Music' (1941), (for percussion quartet); Richard Grayson's 'Shoot the Piano Player' (1995), (for player piano and electronics), and 'Mister 528' (1996), (for multiple player pianos and electronics); Amadeo Roldán's 'Ritmica No. 5' (1930) and 'Ritmica No. 6' (1930),( for percussion ensemble); and Felix Mendelssohn's 'Saltarello-Presto from Symphony No. 4', arranged by Paul Lehrman (for 16 player pianos)." - label description.

Jorge Antunes e o GeMUnB
CD
$16.00
UnB Discos (Brazil)
CD 350010
"Historical recordings of Jorge Antunes and the Group of Musical Experimentation of the University of Brasilia (GeMUnB) from their European tour of 1975. The GeMUnB was created by Antunes in 1974 after he joined the teaching staff at the University. Antunes brought a new concept to Brazilian composition: live electronic music, utilizing experimentation and new equipment such as the Synthi A EMS, an analog synthesizer introduced in the 60's. The eight musicians in the group (including Norma Lilia (dancer), Laura Conde (voice), Odette Ernest Dias (flutes), Sebastiao Gomes (oboe, English horn and bass clarinet), Bohumil Med (French horn), Mariuga Lisboa Antunes (piano), Fernando Vasques (viola), and Jorge Amando Nunes (cello)) performed concerts of Antunes own music alongside world premieres of internationally known composers such as Cage, Riley, Stockhausen, etc. The pieces included on this disc are from the GeMUnB's European tour of 1975, where they made appearances and recorded sessions for European radio. Track listing is as follows: FlautatualF (a palindromic piece for flute, piccolo, tape recorder, microphone, bottle, and magnetic tape), Trio em la pis (for voice, violincello, and piano), Source (for voice, flute, viola, cello, piano, synthesizer and magnetic tape), and Vivaldia MCMLXXV (for voice, dancer, flute, English horn, French horn, viola, cello, piano and magnetic tape). Powerful, challenging pieces in all, and 'an important musicological achievement'." - Monica.

Aranos
"Whilst Your Gaiety Melts"
10"
$9.00
Beta-Lactam Ring Records (U.S.)
mt024
"The 4th installment in the Lactamase series of 10" records (already released volumes by Edward Ka-Spel / Tony Conrad and Rick Reed, others to be by Miroslaw Rajkowski, Vas Deferens Organization, Noise-Maker's Fifes, Volcano the Bear, Troum, Charalambides, Rena, Spiral Limbus, Okazaki Fragments, and Coil - collect all 12 coupons - one in each 10" release and get a bonus 10" with new material by all the artists in the series). 'Whilst Your Gaiety Melts' starts out with rhythmic piano and violin with mixed effects and slowly morphs into a very long and sweet violin drone with haunting deep vocals. 'Octopus Field' is a more low-fi, free flowing soundscape with layers of minimal sounds and effects. smoooth...and abstract! Brilliant avant-garde music that you must have!" - label description. numbered edition of 500 copies.

Scott Arford / Randy H. Y. Yau / Michael Nine
"7hz"
CD
$9.00
Auscultare Research / Ground Fault Recordings (U.S.)
AUS017
"7hz, founded in 1995 by Scott Arford, has continued to function as San Francisco's premiere venue for noise and experimental media. A space where new combinations of image, sound, and experience can be realized. Since its inception it has had the privilege of hosting performances for many of the world's most interesting, progressive, and challenging sound and media artists. This CD represents some of the best recordings by each of the 3 people that live at 7hz and make it the wonderful place that it is. Randy has appeared on Ground Fault (GF009 - RHY Yau 'The Hidden Tongue'). Scott is also no stranger to Ground Fault (GF003 - Radiosonde 'Meter Sickness'). Michael Nine is better known for his work under the name Death Squad. This is the fourth collaborative CD between Randy Yau's Aucultare Reseach label and Ground Fault Recordings." - label description.

Arg
CD
$13.00
SIRR.ecords (Portugal)
sirr2008
"Arg is the solo project of Graziano Lello, where he carries out electronic and concrete music compositions in which he interacts with heterogeneous materials and very different sound sources (field recordings, samples, electronic generated sounds and real instrumentation). The pieces pay homage to Robert Bresson or George Perec and reveal a distinctive approach where silence plays a key role. Digital glitches and noises pervading a poetics of the sublime. Graziano Lello has been collaborating recently with the project Arturo and with the improvised electronic music trio Taxonomy (with Elio Martusciello and Roberto Fega)." - label description.

Arkkon
"Live.Turino.Italia.27.0.02"
CDR
$15.00
Arkkon Editions (England)
AE0002
Arkkon is David Knight, whose long history has seen him behind the scenes of The Fast Set (the first ever single released by the label that became 4AD and on the first "Some Bizarre Album"), Five or Six, Shockheaded Peters, and Danielle Dax, plus he had one solo track featured on the legendary "Rising from Red Sand" cassette compilation. more recently Arkkon was featured on the Anomalous Records compilation LP "Electrically Induced Vibrations". "A live recording of the Arkkon show at Officine Elettroniche, Turin, Italy, on 27.02.2002. Each individually printed cover is a different colour, each CD is signed and numbered. Kodak Ultima CDRs have been used for their archival qualities. An edition of 50." - label description.

Artificial Memory Trace
"Vol. 7: Ritmax Asimetra"
CD
$14.00
Creamgardens (Netherlands)
CGR 02
"Slavek Kwi, aka Artificial Memory Trace is a cultural refugee as much as an actual one. He walked 3 sleepless days without food to reach the West. This intensity and the power of his will is present in all that he does, be it the organic sound realm he creates, or the graphics and handwriting he invents. His musical universe is a precisely structured and perfect balanced mix of diverse 'Musique Concréte' materials. Frederick Rzewski, his musical mentor, has assisted him over the past 5 years and has been a major influence, as well as John Cage. From his unique language, his invention on fonts, to his unearthly harmonies, everything Slavek touches, turns into Slavek. On this new CD, Kwi gives emphasis to the combination of auditive and physical aspects from soundscapes. He creates architectural structures with highly unusual combinations of sounds, almost only of concrete origin. He is constantly searching for balance through observing the nature of each participant. Sounds are playing roles of 'individuals' coexisting inside 'societies of sounds' as he calls his compositions. The wide context of creative output from A.M.T. shakes up the world of electronic music by giving it the fresh wind of natural acoustics. Slavek Kwi about himself : '...maybe I am a sound painter, I do paint with colors of ambiences on the canvas of time...' Beautifully packaged in a shiny gatefold sleeve, including a picture- and info-booklet. Recommended for listening at a relatively high volume to conserve the natural dynamic recorded at low volume." - label description.

Artificial Memory Trace
"Vol. 9: Distori (Noah)"
CD
$12.00
Sonoris (France)
SON-07
second CD by Czech artist living in Belgium. a musique concrète of field recordings, voices, digital errors, and loops, as well as lead vocals by flamingos and falcons. Digipak.

Artificial Memory Trace / PBK
"Transphere 1997-1999"
CD
$11.00
Erewhon (Belgium)
CDWhON002
"Result of a two year (and ongoing) collaboration between 2 major sound artists. Relying on an already impressive body of work (with releases on Audioview, JdK, Sonoris, ERS), AMT creates electroacoustic 'sound-paintings', complex audio-situations processed mainly from site specific recordings. Over the last 10 years, as a solo artist and in his frequent collaborations (with Asmus Tietchens, Vidna Obmana, Jarboe, Hands To) PBK has established a worldwide reputation within the more extreme spectrum of noisy, post-industrial music. Their careful collaboration is everything you could expect from two musicians who decided to set their standards high above the ordinary 'sounds exchange' process." - label description.

Koji Asano
"Gravity"
CD
$15.00
Solstice Records (Japan)
RAB003
this 1996 album features Hisao Otake (keyboards), Hisashi Nogata (drums) and Koji Asano (guitar).

Koji Asano
"The Last Shade of Evening Falls 2/4"
CD
$9.00
Solstice Records (Spain)
SOLSTICE17
"Four separate discs (1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 ) consisting of long pieces of electronically treated compositions for violin and contrabass, each one having its own melodic and harmonic qualities. All of which involve real time playing that was later converted into soundfiles and recomposed on computer, these aspects were then layered densely with heavily time-streched underscores that rise and fall in the mix producing a queasy, beautiful, haunting and absorbing combination. Especially effective when taken in over the course of the whole of the 260 minute, 4 disc duration of the work." - Jefferson.

Koji Asano
"The Last Shade of Evening Falls 4/4"
CD
$9.00
Solstice Records (Spain)
SOLSTICE19
"Four separate discs (1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 ) consisting of long pieces of electronically treated compositions for violin and contrabass, each one having its own melodic and harmonic qualities. All of which involve real time playing that was later converted into soundfiles and recomposed on computer, these aspects were then layered densely with heavily time-streched underscores that rise and fall in the mix producing a queasy, beautiful, haunting and absorbing combination. Especially effective when taken in over the course of the whole of the 260 minute, 4 disc duration of the work." - Jefferson.

Koji Asano
"Pheromone"
CD
$15.00
Solstice Records (Japan)
RAB004
his fourth album, from 1996, featuring 15 tracks played on synth, sampler, guitar, and piano.

Koji Asano
"A Second Dam"
CD
$9.00
Solstice Records (Spain)
SOLSTICE23
"The twenty third album is one track long electric piece. High frequencies tone lies over an hour until the sudden end comes unexpectedly. Each year having more releases, yet rare, fresh and original work as usual. This CD is not soundscape or sound art stuff, though there's something here unconsciously comes down to deep thoughts." - label description.

Koji Asano
"Solstice"
CD
$15.00
Solstice Records (Spain)
RAB001
his debut album from 1995, now out of print. "Constructed by many different ways of using sampler and guitars."

Koji Asano
"Sunshine Filtering Through Foliage"
CD
$9.00
Solstice Records (Japan)
SOL999
reverberant clouds of subliminally throbbing electronics from unidentified sounds source. "Playing by just one analog synthesizer. but I didn't record directly from equipment to recorder by line. because I wanted to record the sound of 'Resonance' of many pieces and things in my studio (wood doors, glasses, bells. cups. desk, etc.) which caused by so big volumed synthesizer from speakers. put 2 microphones bit far from speakers not to record only sound of synthesizer but to record shaking things." - Koji Asano.

Patrick Ascione
"Primitive • Espaces-Paradoxes"
CD EP
$9.00
INA-GRM (France)
INA e 5012
two electroacoustic pieces, "Primitive" (1995) and "Espaces-Paradoxes" (1987-89), totaling 33 minutes. about "Espaces-Paradoxes", Ascione writes: "The first acousmatic work designed and projected in 16 real tracks, in full stereo. It deals with the question of writing a three dimensional space into the very act of studio composition. A continuum of singular spaces, real and suggested, give rhythm to the overall structure. The alternating of imagined spatial situations that oppose each other, answer each other or superimpose on each other, and wherein the sound effects are seemingly but a pretext for these figures in space. In return, and paradoxically, these give a sense and a life to the sound forms themselves. Thus, a specific form of discourse is borne of the simultaneous and successive perception of all these planes, trajectories and centers transmitting distinct sounds into the air. At the concert, the listener, taking the place of the standard 'mix' becomes a kind of active and strategic receiver of the elements making up the masterwork…" Digipak.

Nils Henrik Asheim
"16 Pieces for Organ"
CD
$16.00
Sofa (Norway)
SOFA 507
"Debut solo release from Norwegian composer/organist, featuring improvisations on the Oslo Cathedral church organ. Asheim says 'the organ is a machine built up of three main elements: air, mechanics, and pipes. A fourth element is Space. I wanted to approach the organ with as few preconceived decisions as possible - with only a minimum of basic characters in mind. This recording aims to render the sound of the organ in a 'live' way, a mix between the position of the listener in the hall and the position of the performer on the bench. Mechanical noises (as well as Oslo's traffic) become integrated in the musical flow.' These are very free-flowing, strong pieces which utilize both the delicacy and the terrifying power of one of the most imposing of instruments." - Monica. Asheim has recently collaborated with Lasse Marhaug on a CD released by Touch. Digipak.

Robert Ashley
"Perfect Lives"
2 x video
$69.00
Lovely Music, Ltd. (U.S.)
LVHS10
"Video by John Sanborn. Robert Ashley, solo voice; Jill Kroesen and David Van Tieghem, chorus; 'Blue' Gene Tyranny, keyboards; David Van Tieghem, non-keyboard percussion; Peter Gordon, music producer; Paul Shorr, soundtrack producer; Dean Winkler, video synthesis and video tape editor; Mary Perillo, associate director/producer; Jacqueline Humbert, costumes; Mary Ashley, design collaborator; Carlota Schoolman, producer for The Kitchen. 2 VHS cassettes, 3 1/2 hours, NTSC. At the center of Perfect Lives is the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley. His continuous song narrates the events of the story and describes a 1980's update of the mythology of small town America. Perfect Lives is populated with myriad characters revolving around two musicians --'R', the singer of myth and legend, and his friend, Buddy, The World's Greatest Piano Player. They have come to a small town in the Midwest to entertain at the Perfect Lives Lounge. As Robert Ashley describes in the opera synopsis, 'they fall in with two locals to commit the perfect crime, a metaphor for something philosophical: in this case, to remove a sizable about of money from The Bank for one day (and one day only) and let the whole world know that it was missing.' The eloping couple, Ed and Gwyn, the old people at the home, the sheriff and his wife (Will and Ida) who finally unravel the mystery, and Isolde who watches the celebration of the changing of the light at sundown from the doorway of her mother's house are some of the characters who journey through the seven episodes of the opera. Derived from a colloquial idiom, Perfect Lives transforms familiar material into an elaborate metaphor for the rebirth of the human soul. It has been called a comic opera about reincarnation." - label description.

Robert Ashley
"Superior Seven / Tract"
CD
$13.00
New World Records (U.S.)
80460-2
"Robert Ashley is known primarily for his theater-based pieces and television operas. This new release presents the world premiere recordings of two of his 'orchestral; pieces, Superior Seven (concerto for flute), and Tract (for orchestra and voice), where the orchestra is provided by a MIDI synthesizer. In Superior Seven, the flute floats freely in and out of an atmospheric electronic sound tapestry. It is a colorful, kaleidoscopic, ever-changing soundscape pervaded throughout by a sense of playful whimsy. Tract, on the other hand, is cut from an altogether darker cloth. The voice is used as one of the orchestral timbres in a piece that is resolutely mournful and dirge-like in tone, a wordless lament." - label description. features Barbara Held (flute) and Thomas Buckner (voice).

Robert Ashley
"Your Money My Life Goodbye"
CD
$12.00
Lovely Music, Ltd. (U.S.)
LCD 1005
a vocal-ensemble piece for radio featuring Ashley along with Jacqueline Humbert, Thomas Buckner, Joan La Barbara, and Sam Ashley. rather obscured and drenched in echo melodically intoned with a unique rhythm over a curiously subdued but consistent layer of electronic music; constant bass line, slow synth washes, and a faint pulse all moving along at a leisurely pace. all this to describe the story of an incapacitated woman sending her spy son to her high school reunion and going on to describe the son's deceased wife who was an internationally renowned swindler. "Everybody is crazy", Ashley says in closing.

Atlatl
"All You Fuckers Without Radar"
CD
$9.00
Cloaca Recordings (U.S.)
PZLN02
improvised electronic recorded directly to digital tape without overdubs. voltage controlled electronics generate shifting soundscapes. minimalist experimental like Rehberg & Bauer.

Atlatl
"Pzlon Vent"
CD
$6.00
Cloaca Recordings (U.S.)
PZLN03
"Atlatl creates live improvised electronic works recorded without overdubs. Atlatl seeks to explore a life within the machine, where the faults and imperfections of electronics are allowed to interact and evolve. Originally planned as an EP, but now over 70 minutes, Pzlon Vent explores the unique sounds of voltage-controlled vacuum tube electronics. The result is a minimal, but at times, harsh and difficult experience."

Aube
"Blood-Brain Barrier"
CD
$13.00
Ytterbium (France)
YTTERBIUM03
"Designer - Material - Source unique - Organic sounds - Isolating elements of technology - Mixture - Electronic - Minimalistic - Experimental - Noise.... Limited edition of 500 copies. Black jewel box." - label description. All composed, mixed, recorded and designed by Akifumi Nakajima at Studio MECCA, Kyoto, Japan January-February 1996 and July-August 1998 using only the sounds of the brain waves/electroencephalogram as source material.

Aube
"Dazzle Reflexion"
CD
$16.00
Releasing Eskimo (Sweden)
IGLOO-007
swelling electronic noise ranging from ominous ambient to powerful onslaughts. recorded December 1995 to February 1996 using only the sounds of fluorescent and glow lamps as source material. limited edition of 500.

Aube
"Evocation"
CD
$15.00
Auf Abwegen (Germany)
AATP03
sixty minutes of droning ambient noises using only brain waves and electroencephalogram as source material. a cosmic and distant electronic sound world. limited, numbered edition of 621 copies.

Aube
"Millennium - Aprilis"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200004
the fourth installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the April installment and uses only the sounds of fire as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Augustus"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200008
the eight installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the August installment and uses only the sounds of earth as source material. very rhythmic, clock like, but building and swelling, as well as subsiding. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Februarius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200002
the second installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the August installment and uses only the sounds of water as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Ianuarius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200001
"A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description. the second installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the January installment and uses only the sounds of water as source material. limited edition of 500 copies.

Aube
"Millennium - Iulius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200007
the seventh installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the July installment and uses only the sounds of earth as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Iunius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200006
the sixth installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the June installment and uses only the sounds of fire as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Maius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200005
the fifth installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the May installment and uses only the sounds of fire as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - Martius"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200003
the third installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the March installment and uses only the sounds of water as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Millennium - September"
CD
$14.00
Armonika (Italy)
KA200009
the ninth installment in 12 CD series for the year 2000. there is one CD for each month of the year and one track for each day of the month. this is the September installment and uses only the sounds of earth as source material. limited edition of 500 copies. "A musical project that will catch your mind and soul for one year's time: Aube, a well-known genius of the international scene, will offer you one of the great events of 2000; he will dedicate to the first year of the new millennium a monumental sonic opera in twelve chapters. Every month of the new year will offer you a taste of Aube's artistic talent; a seducing mixture of obscure influences and experimental excursions, from noisy structures to ambient landscapes. From January to December, along the four seasons, from a solstice to an equinox, Aube will lead you in a pleasant one year period journey from the dawn of first day to the twilight of the last one, with the ideal soundtrack for the beginning of a new era." - label description.

Aube
"Recontextual Abstraction 1996"
2 x CD
$18.00
Gender-Less Kibbutz (Germany)
glk15
a collection of all the compilation tracks Akifumi recorded during the year 1996. as you can well imagine, some tracks didn't surface until later, and at least a couple were never released in the end. even following his work fairly closely that year, I never saw but a few of these compilations, so this is a great way to get them all now. each track still uses a single source material, but the sources represented here vary a lot and include heartbeat, 1 voltage controlled oscillator, brain waves, computer data signals, water, thunder, field recordings by Toy Bizarre, rocks, tracks by Blazen Y Sharp and Scour, blood vessel, monophonic analogue synthesizer, and fire. most tend toward the more extreme direction of his sound.

Aube
"Solid Pressure"
CD
$11.00
Blackbean and Placenta (U.S.)
bbptc 164
seven tracks recorded in 1997 (and revised in 2000) using metal as a source material. includes a live recording from Omega Point, and the tracks from the "Ringrumble" C5, which was released in edition of 5 copies. this CD is in an edition of 500 copies.

Aube
"Stared Gleam"
CD
$16.00
Iris Light (U.K.)
i>LIGHT003CD
recordings from early 1997 using only a glow lamp as the original sound source. this disc combines both of his then current styles, taking the dark ambience of "Metal De Metal" and "Magnetostriction" and mixing it with harsh electronics of "Purification To Numbness". full color cover using particle analysis patterns.

Augur
"Like Little Machines"
CD
$10.00
Rectrix (U.S.)
augur tf2
"Edition of 1000. 'Machines...' is a documentation of Augur's 'live improvisation method' (all pieces are improvised in one or two sessions, straight to CDR). Although Augur has done many improv CDRs, this is the first one released to date. As with most Augur releases, there is an underlying theme being aurally investigated; in this case, the metaphor of mind, machine and body, and the irony of the popular notion that machines are somehow alien, when they are in fact, merely a reflection of their creators. Source sounds for this disk were generated during previous performances, recycled using various technologies and recorded acoustically and digitally." - label description. this CD comes packaged in a jewel case with only a tray card.

Larry Austin
"Octo Mixes"
CD
$12.00
Electronic Music Foundation (U.S.)
EMF CD 039
"This CD of Larry Austin's recent work is just wonderful. It's lively, funny, dramatic, touching. It uses electronics to bring far-away things closer to us. It's like taking a musical trip around the world on an electronic carpet, from his reworking of John Cage's 'Williams' Mix' in 1952, to the sounds of the táragató, a Hungarian folk instrument, to a portrait of new-music baritone Thomas Buckner in New York, to the recounting of a Serbian family history, as Austin puts it, 'a dynamically moving octophonic family tree of sound, the wind moving through it, the sonic leaves and creaking limbs animating its landscape.' Octophonic? All of this music was composed for an eight-loudspeaker surround-sound environment. And even mixed down to two channels for a stereo disc, the spatial sense is great. The compositions and performers are 'Táragató!' (1998), with Steven Duke (soprano sax) and Esther Lamneck (processed tarogato); 'Singing!...the music of my own time' (1998), with Thomas Buckner, voice; 'Djuro's Tree' (1997), a story told by Alexandra Kurepa and André Waschka; and 'Williams [re]Mix[ed]' (2001), based on John Cage's 'Williams Mix' (1952) for eight magnetic tapes." - label description.

Larry Austin / Lars-Gunnar Bodin
"Cultures Électroniques 9 - Prix Magisterium"
CD
$15.00
GMEB / UNESCO / CIME (France)
LDC 278 062
prize winning electronic music from two long active composers. this includes Austin's "BluesAx" (1995-96) [featuring Stephen Duke on saxophone] and "Quadrants" (1972-94) [featuring J.B. Floyd on piano and Robert McCormick on percussion] and Bodin's "Hålsningår Fran Syrenbersån" (1994) and "For Jon - Fragments of a Time to Come" (1977). the last work was originally released on LP by Folkways in 1978.

Ben Azarm
"Neoapplictana"
CD
$10.00
Artifact Recordings (U.S.)
ART 1018
apocalyptic early industrial sounds processed voices and primitive electronics with guests Sam Ashley, K. Atchley, John Bischoff, Bob Gonsalves, Jim Horton, and Brian Reinbolt. "Ben Azarm's work asserts certain arcane sense of approach in examining quotidian imprints of the 'institutionalized' culture. ...His aesthetic models are drawn from fabricated and artificial rendition of epics related to the transgressive edge of the Apollonian reality - Rockford files, Heidi Fleiss, Las Vegas, etc. In the context of sonic parity he treats composition as a Dionysian medium for sonic mutation to induce a shift in pre-perceived aural 'meaning'. He studied experimental music composition with Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and Gordon Mumma at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College. He received his MFA in electronic music composition in 1982. His compositions have been extensively featured by numerous ensembles during the past twenty years." - label biography.

Milton Babbitt
"Philomel"
CD
$13.00
New World Records (U.S.)
80466-2
very surreal and bizarre mixture of operatic female voice, electronics and piano. features Bethany Beardslee, Lynne Weber, sopranos; Jerry Kuderna, Robert Miller, pianos; tape and synthesized sound. "The four works on this recording span a period of a decade and are among the best of Babbitt’s output, tape and otherwise. 'Philomel' (1964), for soprano, recorded soprano, and synthesized sound, is one of the undisputed classics of electroacoustic music and this is its definitive recording. Two versions of 'Phonemena' (1969)-one for soprano and piano, the other for soprano and tape-another virtuosic vocal piece written for the unique talents of Bethany Beardslee, are included on this recording. 'Post-Partitions' (1966) for solo piano, and 'Reflections' (1975), for piano and tape, contrast Babbitt’s complex yet pellucid writing for solo piano with that of his writing featuring the interplay between live performer and tape." - label description.

M. Behrens
"Security vs. Freedom"
2 x 3" CD
$14.00
edition . . . (U.S.)
edition xxviii
"The successor to 'Transition' (2001) in the same format - two mini CDs, six full-colour cards with photographs - further exploits the idea of the absent transition. Between two poles of music the listener imagines a huge step from one phase of work to another with a distance of nearly seven years inbetween, or perhaps just one state of mind to another: security and freedom. But does the security lie in the carefully pronounced minimalist compositions of 'The Unknown' on disc 2, or in the dense sound fields of 'Compressed Location 1 and 2' on disc 1 that engulf and embrace the listener? Or vice versa: is freedom expressed in the structurally open, expressive passages of the latter, or in the gap between very low and very high frequencies of 'The Unknown - part 1', in which the noise of the surroundings is framed by sound, but still remaining fully audible - unsuppressed?" - M. Behrens.

Marc Behrens & Paulo Raposo
"Hades"
CD
$10.00
and/OAR (U.S.)
and/25
"After their first successful collaboration 'Further Consequences of Reinterpretation' (premiered in May 2003 at the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon, released as a CD album by the Portugal-based label Crónica), and the project's appendix release entitled 'Product', the sound artists Paulo Raposo and Marc Behrens have created a new dynamic sound work entitled Hades. Hades is based on sound recordings made aboard Lisbon ferries and at the quays of Cais do Sodré, Trafaria and Cacilhas 2001-2005. Both artists had initially set out to record independently, being fascinated with the sounds of the ship hull and landing gear, as well as with the actual passage on the river, which gives a magnificent (maybe the best) view on large parts of the old city of Lisbon. During the course of the work which took three years to complete, some more precisely directed recordings were made together. Understanding the actual crossing as a symbolic passage, and once it was reduced to sound and memory, it became associated to the crossing of the mythic river Styx to enter Hades, the ancient Greek underworld. As the different sound recordings provide the artists with very diverse material (for example low frequencies from the ship's hulls and motors, high frequencies and beats from the gates at Cais do Sodré), they understand the composition as hovering on the delicate borderline between a soundscape portrait and a multi-strata arrangement, in which things happen parallelly, and individual layers move on more than one path simultaneously. In the opinion of and/OAR, Hades is not only one of the strongest works to surface from either artist, a/O will go out on a limb to state that it could very well set a new precedent of quality for collaboration work of it's ilk. Needless to say, a/O is highly honored to be releasing it. Please give it a very attentive listen. Especially in headphones! Apart from being collaborating sound artists, Behrens and Raposo have also worked together since 2001 on the Lisbon based label SIRR." - label description.

Bob Bellerue / Halfnormal
"Threat Level Charlie"
CD
$6.00
Anarchymoon Recordings (U.S.)
anok1
"Threat Level Charlie is a composition for material, space(s), electronics, programming, body, sound and power. (Tube microphones or other prepared acoustic mics; sheets of glass, metal, paper, wood; mixer; laptop; dynamic microphones; contact mics, including one loose on a long cord; PA or speaker cabinet, homemade metal speakers; bamboo flute; radio.) Microphones are placed inside of tubes and made to feedback, and filter a portable radio that wanders in between stations. The performer plays non-musical instruments made with common materials representing consumer protection and comfort (panes of glass, metal, paper, wood), using hands, bows and feedback. A contact mic is place in the mouth, played with the tongue and gluttoral palette; it is held to speakers and plays them with feedback. A bamboo flute is played; stomping and clapping occur: these sounds are filtered through the various systems in action. Broadband noise is generated from ambient and prepared-ambient recordings; speeches by George Bush and Osama bin Laden are shredded together. The result is a visceral wail against corporate, spiritual, and political power systems, using organic and alleatoric rhythms, melodies, textures; chthonic sounds, oppressed signals." - artist description.

Harry Bertoia
"Sound Sculptures"
video
$24.00
Bertoia Studio (U.S.)
0-9677388-3-0
"in the late 1960's, Designer and Sculptor Harry Bertoia and his son Val, made hundreds of sound sculptures. These sculptures represent Harry Bertoia's formation Sonambient®. Sonambient® was Bertoia's term to describe the spatial and tonal environment created by these sculptures. Harry Bertoia created these sculptures of different shapes, length and thickness in order to achieve a range of gentle and sharp sounds. He experimented as a way to seek harmonic balance with metal, resulting in pure, unique tones. When touched, struck or brushed, these sculptures become abstractions of sound as they sway and knock against one another. The sounds are organic and mysterious, as tones resonate and flow into each other. In this performance, recorded in Harry Bertoia's original Sonambient® barn, a sound gallery filled with gongs, suspended metal bars and rows of tall vertical metal rods, Val Bertoia illustrates the kinetic qualities of the Bertoia sound sculptures. Val Bertoia creates sculptural forms inspired by nature and continues the Bertoia tradition of sound sculptures." - from the back cover. running time 10 minutes. color cover. NTSC.

Pierluigi Billone
"mani.long"
CD
$15.00
Durian Records (Austria)
durian 019-2
modern orchestral work performed by Klangforum Wien.

Christian Bishop + Julian Oliver
"Azimuth"
CDR
$14.00
Select Parks (Australia)
select parks003
"#3 on the Select Parks parks label sees Christian Bishop of FMC and U10CELLS collaborate with Julian Oliver aka Delire. Described as a study of the azimuth (an astronimical term describing relationships between the horizon and a celestial body) these haunted and climbing compositions seem to find a place between the stratosphere and low flying satellites while twisiting tides of bass indicate a groundplane below. Blasts of high freq, noise and small machines work like some strange mathematics that produce a kind of polyrhythmical sentience. Nothing like what we'd expect from the post-op death punk of FMC and the kung fu electroacoustics of Delire. Azimuth is melancholic even!" - Mark Harwood.

BMB con.
"#8"
3" CD
$5.00
Staalplaat (Netherlands)
STmCD 010
site specific recordings made at performances around Europe. would seem to involve some gun play. all very textural explorations via physical actions recorded in live performances in Germany, Holland and the Czech Republic during 1995 and 1996 by the trio of Justin Bennett (currently a member of MIMEO), Wikke 't Hooft, and Roelf Toxopeus.

Patrick Bokanowski
"Courts Métrages"
video
$40.00
Re:Voir (France)
RV0003
a collection of beautiful experimental short films including "La Plage" (1991), "La Femme qui se Poudre" (1972), "Dèjeuner du Matin" (1974), and "Au bord du lac" (1993), all with music by Michéle Bokanowski (assisted by Jean Guérin, Eliane Radigue, Gérard Frémy and R Cahen on one of the earlier soundtracks). the later films play with deformations of every day scenes (from the beach, the park, racing horses, etc.) that at times assume the beautiful of early Surrealist painting. as lovely as they are, the real mind blowers here are the middle films from the early 1970s. combining live action, animation and direct manipulation of the film, Bokanowski and foreshadows the strange universes later called up by David Lynch and The Brothers Quay. "Yet it's very much like a new masterpiece that blazes its own trail without resembling anything else that has been seen before (although you could claim a vague family resemblance with Goya or German expressionism). But whatever one wants to analyze or not analyze in this film, it is a work which disturbs one deeply. The music is pitched high, as if synthesized from the whistling wind; it's the sound a flying saucer might make along with Tibetan trumpets and overheard bits and pieces of people talking in a language you don't understand. You wonder how everything you are looking at was fabricated. There are a few double exposures, or else 'real people' wearing grotesque Frankenstein-like masks or stockings over their faces. They are either filmed through a dirty glass or else they metamorphose into drawings (a character can be drawn or else volumes come into focus and assemble themselves into a weird and yet coherent form): as a result, the space the film is describing is being constantly scrambled; it's a film without any floor in it and, as a spectator, when you are watching it, even if you are comfortably seated, your own seat leaves the ground. One notices these briefly passing creatures (one of which is, yes, a woman powdering herself) slowly and deliberately undertaking acts you don't quite understand, but which are clearly of a ghastly nature (perhaps a murder?); one watches two 'real' characters suddenly change into ink spots while a bombardment of drawn or painted meteorites explodes on what might be the 'earth'; one looks at somebody pouring coffee into a full cup which then overflows into an endlessly dark and ink-like trail; at which point you say to yourself that what is going on here, in this black and upsetting film, has the logic of a nightmare." - Dominique Noguez (on "La Femme qui se Poudre"). 48 mins. NTSC.

Brad Bordine
"Same"
CD
$8.00
Vitalist Recordings (U.S.)
SAME01
"Same is the debut CD by Brad Bordine. The music is some time, and some space. The title revisits Luc Ferrari's Tautologos series, performing a minor renunciation of lexicality. This is not denying reference, but expanding symbol and symbolized to overlap." or as Monica put it: "Somber, exquisitely sparse and stark pieces from LA-based musician Brad Bordine. 5 tracks of haunting atmospheres, silence and sound keeping a perfect balance throughout. Especially notable is track 4 (entitled 'February'), a 13 minute piece which uses the piano as a minimal yet powerful focal point."

Jane Brockman / George Todd
"Music for Kurzweil and Synclavier"
LP
$5.00
Opus One (U.S.)
opus 133
"As a live performance work for the Kurzweil Digital Synthesizer, the nine Kurzweil Etudes (1986) explore idiomatic materials for this new (as of the date of the composition of these etudes) instrument. In the process, it was also my intention to demonstrate the magnificent capability of the machine. The Kurzweil's design is based on the concept of sampling: the factory-programmed sounds are actually digitized recordings of conventional instruments. These sounds have become a point of departure for me in programming new sounds. My own timbres have much of the familiarity of conventional instruments but employ modifications which take advantage of the capability of an extremely powerful computer. My music endeavors to capture the richness and drama of the Kurzweil in a fashion so idiomatic that it could be written for and played on no other instrument. Of course, that's what has traditionally been defined as good orchestration." - Jane Brockman "Sound Sculptures derives its title from the imagined mobiles and kinetic art objects. The sounds suggest (to me) planes, surfaces, textures, colors, floating, dancing through space." - George Todd.

Chris Brown
"Talking Drum"
CD
$12.00
Pogus Productions (U.S.)
P21034-2
"Binaural motion recordings composed as a dialogue of distances. Live recordings of music for electronic network music ensemble juxtaposed with location recordings of traditional music and environmental soundscapes. Made in Bali, the Philippines, Turkey, Europe, Cuba and America 1991-99. This compilation/composition documents nearly a decade of work that began with the recording of dense sonic environments, both 'natural' and urban. Talking Drum is an interactive installation made with four networked laptop computers programmed to explore cyclical polyrhythms in large acoustic spaces. While the performance of the entire system is synchronized by one computer, each computer station generates independent results using genetic-programming algorithms which are affected by acoustic musicians' performances. Each station in the space 'grows' its own rhythmic response to the situation, like similar plants growing differently in adjustment to their locations in an environment. The musicians improvise with the rhythms, interacting with the response of the computers they play next to, and the whole is a quartet of these human-machine duets. This recording compiles moments from these performances, and the recordings that inspired their creation, into one continuous piece. Electronic music is normally thought of as a medium emphasizing unlimited access to timbre - I think this is often over-emphasized, and that, at its best, it changes our experience of space. The traditional African talking drums are played held under the arms so that their laces can be squeezed to change the pitch of the drum-head as rhythms are played. The changing pitches and rhythms imitate patterns of the tonal languages of West Africa, and can be used like musical telephony to communicate over long distances. This recording follows this design, creating conversations between different places, environments, people, rituals, and parties on a global scale."

Chris Brown
"Talking Drum"
CD
$12.00
Sonore (France)
SON-015
"Influenced by American experimental and improvised music, Chris Brown dives into traditional Indonesian and Cuban music fitted out with a binaural microphone clipped to his sunglasses. He then provides the audience with a fabulous stereophonic travel diary, supplemented by his interactive electroacoustic installations. 'Talking Drum' is a series of sound experiences recorded between 1991 and 1999." - label description.

Reinhold Brunner & Thomas Hintner
"Spirograph"
magazine & 7"
$8.00
Bad Alchemy (Germany)
BA-33
an 8-track EP of loopy glitch collages with bass guitar. comes with issue 33 of the magazine Bad Alchemy. written all in German, its 82 pages include "The Jazz of Consciousness", an Asmus Tietchens text, and lots of reviews.

Allan Bryant
"canB sel (cannibal cell)"
CD
$9.00
IRML (U.S.)
IRML 5
old school electronic free form sounds, preceeded by a 6 minute recording of a thunder storm. this is the artist's (he a former member of MEV) impression of chemical bio-evolution, meant for film soundtracks and "people who want to immerse themselves" (or "peepl hu want tu immerz themselvz" in Bryant's own shorthand language). with an 8 page booklet of ruminations on various subjects in above mentioned special writing.

Allan Bryant
"spEs tecno"
CD
$9.00
IRML (U.S.)
IRML 3
old school electronic sounds from original MEV member. includes booklet of phonetic rants.

Thomas Buckner
"Sign of the Times"
CD
$12.00
Lovely Music, Ltd. (U.S.)
LCD 3022
"Thomas Buckner, baritone; Stefani Starin, flute, alto flute and khaen; Jon Gibson, soprano saxophone; Leroy Jenkins, viola; Joseph Kubera, piano; Bill Ruyle, percussion. Commissioned works dealing with contemporary social and spiritual concerns: Jon Gibson's Running Commentary (Arbitrary Excerpts), Annea Lockwood's The Angle of Repose, Leroy Jenkins' Dream of Dreams of Home (with a text by Ann T. Greene), Brian Smith's The Panther, and Robert Ashley's The Producer Speaks."

Thomas Buckner & Tom Hamilton
"Jump the Circle, Jump the Line"
CD
$11.00
Mutable Music (U.S.)
17507-2
Vocal music by Thomas Buckner (known for his work with Robert Ashley and as founder of the 1750 Arch label). Electronic music and voice processing by Tom Hamilton. "Thirty-five years ago when I began to explore solo and group improvisation the idea was to make improvisations that sounded like compositions. I’ve evolved away from this idea gradually to the point where I want my improvisations, both solo and group, to sound (and be) unpredictable-to take me, my fellow improvisers and the audience to places we haven’t been before. For this piece Tom Hamilton and I decided to carry independence as far as we can. Each part is developed independently, and the goal is not to modify our independent ideas in the act of putting them together. The 'wild card' in this practice is the live electronic processing of the voice, for which Tom has developed a system that guarantees unpredictability while integrating the voice into the electronic soundscape. The result is an organic whole with independent but integrally connected parts." - Thomas Buckner.

Michele Buirette
"La mise en plis"
LP
$7.00
GRRR Records (France)
GRRR 1009
"Michele plays accordion, she meets there different musicians from GRRR, she shares 3 pieces with Bruno Girard (violin, he actually plays in Bratsch) and Didier Petit (cello, he's now at the head of In Situ Records), we find here what's gonna become Pied de Poule (a piece with singer Dominique Fonfrede and Helene Sage), there are two solo pieces, Francis Gorgé and I play on one piece... The cover is an original colorful painting with Michele on accordion. The whole album prefigures Pied de Poule, a French new look on waltz, tango, jazz, gypsy..." - Jean-Jacques Birgé [Un Drame Musical Instantané].

Mike Bullock
"Initial"
CD
$12.00
Chloë (U.S.)
Chloë001
"Different spaces call for different kinds of playing. On the first track, recorded in Montréal, the patrons of the club barely notice the amplified contrabass [with its human 'assistant'] as it attempts to feel out its surroundings. The sounds originate in the air in and around the bass. The amplifier communicates to the room: waves propagate in air. The resonating bass hears it all and talks back to the amp in secret code [electrical signal] further encrypted by effects. Feedback puts the sound in charge: the musician molds what the system creates. On the second track, recorded in a bookstore in Baltimore, the human is in charge again. This time the bass does the talking, and everyone/thing else does the listening. Instead of the sound being sustained by an accident of physics, now the sounds and textures have to look out for themselves." - label description. numbered edition of 500 copies.

William S. Burroughs
"Commissioner of Sewers"
video
$20.00
Mystic Fire Video (U.S.)
MYS 76257
"The film interweaves footage from his public readings including 'The Western Lands', experimental films in which he appears, his paintings and an extensive interview with German writer Jurgen Ploog. In their wide ranging conversation, Burroughs talks about language and other weapons, his theory of the word as virus, the function of dreams, travel in time and space, and about ways of living and dying." directed by Klaus Maeck ("Decoder"). 60 min. NTSC.

William S. Burroughs
"Towers Open Fire"
video
$14.00
Mystic Fire Video (U.S.)
MYS 76085
experimental films made 1962-72 with the collaboration of Ian Sommerville, Brion Gysin and Antony Balch: "Towers Open Fire", "The Cut-Ups", "Bill & Tony", and "William Buys a Parrot". excellent archival footage of the cut-up method in action. "Towers Open Fire is a straightforward attempt to find a cinematic equivalent for William Burroughs' writing: an 11-minute collage of all the key themes and situations in the books, accompanied by a Burroughs soundtrack narration. Society crumbles as the Stock Exchange crashes, members of the Board are raygun-zapped in their own boardroom, and a commando in the orgasm attack leaps through a window… Burroughs as junkie (his long-standing metaphor for the capitalist supply-and-demand situation) breaks on through to the hallucinatory world of the Brion Gysin Dream Machines. The Cut-ups is the actual breakthrough in the grey room. Instead of rendering Burroughs' writing, Balch re-interprets it as cinema." - Cinema Rising. 35 min. some color but largely black and white. NTSC.

John Cage
"Branches"
CD
$15.00
Edition Wandelweiser Records (Germany)
EWR 9901
"When Swiss ensemble daswirdas first performed Branches on May 12th, 1991 in Zurich, John Cage was present as a listener. Branches (1976) starts with a performance of Child of Tree and is then followed by a random number of variations on Child of Tree each lasting 8 minutes, all of which are separated from each other by periods of silence, last 1-8 minutes. John Cage says in the instructions to the piece Child of Tree (1975): 'Find 10 'instruments', one of which is a pod (rattle) from a poinciana tree. These grow in Mexico (e.g. in Guernavaca).' Each player decides on the course of his score of Branches by means of the I Ching. It is used to determine the arrangement of Child of Tree and its variations, the number of instruments that are played in a particular part, the choice of instruments (the pod is always reserved for the last part, the others may occur in groups, but only once each) and the length of the rests. For this piece, you should use neither conventionally tuned instruments nor any that are made from animal materials or metal. Especially recommended are cacti (alive or dry) whose needles are plucked by using toothpicks. The recording took place in the colossal dam in Val Sumvitg (Grisons, Switzerland), excluding any sounds from the outside, and at a constant temperature of 6° C. The inner space of this concrete building is divided into 7 chambers of varying size, which are up to 20 meters high or ca. 1000 cubic meters in volume. Connected by two corridors, they form a system of acoustically coupled spaces." - label description.

John Cage
"Complete Piano Music Vol. 6: Pieces 1962-1992"
2 x CD
$30.00
MD & G Gold (Germany)
MDG 6130791
"Cage synthesized western music, eastern music, popular songs and industrial effects into his unique musical voice. Cage created a stir when he called for the services of a percussionist for the performance of 'Etudes Borealis' which had been called unplayable. Cage's pianist becomes a sound pioneer who explores and operates the inner regions of the grand piano. In 'The Beatles' Cage shreds and reassembles pop songs to form a new piece while in ASLSP (As Slow As Possible) he prescribes an inhumanly slow tempo." performed by Steffen Schleiermacher. includes "One2" (1989) [two versions], "One" (1987), "Etudes Boreales" (1978), "The Beatles 1962-70" (1989), "ASLSP" (1985), and "One5" (1990).

John Cage
"Complete Piano Music Vol. 7: Pieces 1933-1950"
CD
$16.00
MD & G Gold (Germany)
MDG 6130793
"The knowledgeable and experienced pianist Steffen Schleiermacher interprets John Cage's early compositions of the 1930's and 1940's, the point of departure for an approach to music that would give a big jolt to the idea of art as a whole. Cage must have posed a riddle to many a cultural devotee of his times with the works brought together on Vol. 7 of MDGs ten-volume complete recording of his piano works. Cage's early piano works demonstrate that he was a composer who could not help looking beyond his own plate. Again and again in these sometimes tonally oriented compositions there are formulas from jazz and blues. Again and again piano sound is not just quite piano sound. Cage's interest in Eastern philosophy also announces itself. The Seasons is based on an idea of the seasons of Oriental origin. Spring stands for creation, summer represents preservation, autumn is destruction, and winter is repose." - label description. includes "Soliloquy" (1945), "Ophelia" (1946), "The Seasons" (1947), "Two Pieces for Piano" (1935), "Jazz Study" (1942), "Metamorphosis" (1938), "Quest - second movement" (1935), "Three Easy Pieces" (1933), "A Room" (1943), "Crete & Dad" (1945), "Two Pieces for Piano" (1946), "Ad Lib." (1942), and "Tripel-paced - first version" (1943).

John Cage
"Four Walls"
CD
$16.00
Largo (Germany)
LARGO 5132
"to those familiar with his later works 'Four Walls', written in 1944, sounds almost conventional. it belongs to the earliest of Cage's collaborations with the dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham. the work was forgotten for some 30 years, and remained unpublished and uncatalogued until 1982. it can now be seen (and heard) as a highly original and monumental piece." performed by John McApline and Beth Griffith.

John Cage
"Music for Prepared Piano Volume 2"
CD
$6.00
Naxos of America Inc. (U.S.)
8559070
performed by Boris Berman, piano. with "The Perilous Night", "Tossed as it is Untroubled", "Daughters of the Lonesome Isle", "Roots of an Unfocus Primitive", "Mysterious Adventure", "And the Earth Shall Bear Again", "The Unavailable Memory of Music for Marcel Duchamp", "Totem Ancestor", "A Room", and "Prelude for Meditation". "The American composer John Cage had a seminal influence on the American avant-garde and on music throughout the world. His interests in Zen Buddhism, the I Ching and in Hinduism were reflected in his innovative and experimental music in which he extended the musical vocabulary to include elements of noise and chance." - from the back cover.

John Cage
"Music of Changes"
CD
$12.00
Lovely Music, Ltd. (U.S.)
LCD 2053
"Like the Pierre Boulez Sonata, Music of Changes is a manifesto. It marks Cage's first comprehensive exploration of non-intention' through the systematic use of chance operations to create a complete, major work. Begun in May 1951 and completed on 13 December of that year, Music of Changes was named in honor of the I Ching, or Book of Changes, the ancient Chinese book of oracles that had become Cage's means of synthesizing chance with rigorous discipline. Cage's notation heralded a new concept of musical time, placing the performer in a new relation to the score, one in which orientation is to the occurrence of events rather than to the relations between them, which is to say to action rather than to memory. Performances of Music of Changes have been rare since David Tudor ceased playing the work in the late 1950s; Herbert Henck and, more recently, Joseph Kubera are among the few pianists to have assayed the obstacles posed by its innovations. For all its prominence in the history of postwar music, Music of Changes has remained more discussed than heard, more treatise than artwork." - John Holzaepfe. performed on piano by Joseph Kubera who has toured with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and worked closely with Cage, Robert Ashley, and La Monte Young, among others.

John Cage
"Number Pieces 2"
CD
$14.00
Mode Records (U.S.)
mode 75
"Five3" for trombone & string quartet performed by Monique Buzzarte (trombone) and The Arditti Quartet. "During the last few years of his life, John Cage wrote many pieces in the same general vein as 'Five3'. They are often referred to as 'the number pieces.' This references the titles of the pieces, which are all simply the number of the performers. Superscripts are added as necessary to distinguish the individual pieces (this is the third quintet, for example). These works are also called 'the time-bracket pieces', a reference to the notation of the pieces. Each event in the piece consists of three components: a short bit of music (usually a single note, but sometimes a phrase of a few tones or a series of chords) flanked on either side by pairs of timings. The timings on the right side indicate the range of time during which to start playing. The little bit of music indicates what to play. The timings on the right side indicate the range of time during which the players must be completed The piece appears before our ears, like magic, with the feeling that it could go on and on, replicating itself, assembling its future forever. The superb Arditti Quartet, along with first violinist Irvine Arditti, continue their traversal of the complete works for string quartet and violin. An original etching by John Cage, '9 Stones', graces the cover. Liner notes are by noted Cage scholar James Pritchett." - label description.

John Cage
"Piano Works 5"
CD
$15.00
Mode Records (U.S.)
mode123
"Four Walls" (1943-44), "Soliloquy" (1945), and "3 Easy Pieces" (1933) performed by Haydée Schvartz (piano) and Jack Bruce (vocals). "Four Walls is a powerful and pivotal work in Cage's oeuvre. This large-scale piece was written as a 'dance-drama' with text and dance by his long-time collaborator Merce Cunningham. It was performed only once in 1944 in a production with actors (which included a young Julie Harris) and other dancers, and was not heard again until it was revived some 30 years later. Cage said that Four Walls deals with the 'disturbed mind.' This feeling is accentuated by the dramatic music, whose use of repetition, intense ostinatos, and silence evokes at times a harrowing closed-in sensibility. In addition, some long silences which are integral to the composition allow the listeners to turn their attention inwards. It was written using only the white keys of the piano. Four Walls shows Cage's seminal ideas on silence, repetition and gradual change, as well as influences of Eastern philosophy and music-its use of repetition foreshadows later minimalist music. At Cunningham's request, Cage also devised a shorter 'solo' piece extrapolated from Four Walls, which Cunningham performed several times in his early recitals. Entitled Soliloquy, it is also presented here. The Three Easy Pieces are early, tonal Cage. The three movements-Round, Duo, and an 'infinite' Canon-are written in an almost continuous 2-part contrapuntal style. The Performers Haydée Schvartz is one of Argentina's leading pianists, performing repertoire from classical to contemporary music. She is a student of the American virtuoso pianist Yvar Mikhashoff, whom she studied with in Buffalo, New York under a Fulbright scholarship. Schvartz has performed in the major concert halls of Argentina and several countries of North/South America and Europe. She is joined here by Jack Bruce (voice); composer, singer, bassist and multi-instrumentalist of the legendary rock group Cream. His eclectic approach to music in his solo recordings and bands mixes rock, blues (performing with John Mayall) and jazz (with Tony Williams Lifetime, John McLaughlin, Billy Cobham and Larry Coryell), with forays into the avant-garde (with ECM artists Michael Mantler and Carla Bley). Liner notes are by Cage's long-time friend and publisher, Don Gillespie." - label description. The Complete John Cage Edition, Volume 28.

John Cage
"Sonata XIII • Music for Marcel Duchamp • Song Books I-II • Empty Words III"
CD
$18.00
Wergo (Germany)
WER 6074-2
performed by Peter Roggenkamp (piano) and Schola Cantorum Stuttgart with John Cage. reissue of LP from 1976.

John Cage
"Variations IV"
CD
$7.00
Legacy International (U.S.)
CD 439
recorded live in Los Angeles by John Cage and David Tudor in August 1965. reissue of the the two LP volumes released on Everest. "In composing by chance, he tries to bypass his own ego, taste, self-whatever it may be called-to create musical happenings with a network of microphones that records and mix such sounds as the slicing of carrots, a collision on the street, the closing of a door, and other banal sounds." a wonderful sound collage.

John Cage
"Voice and Piano"
CD
$16.00
MD & G Gold (Germany)
MDG 6131076
"Four Walls" (1944), "A Flower" (1950), "Experiences II" (1944-45/48), She is Asleep" (1943), "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" (1942), and "Nowth upon Nacht" (1984) performed by Anna Clementi (voice) and Steffen Shleiermacher (piano). "Piano and voice are never heard simultaneously in Cage's extensive Four Walls cycle, and in his shorter songs, among them 'A Flower' and 'The Wonderful Widow,' the piano transcends its traditional accompaniment role. During the vocal interludes the pianist drums on the lid of the concert grand. Cage rations the duet pianist a total of four different tones and things almost come to blows in 'Nowth Upon Nacht,' the concluding piano song on this recording. The female vocalist rushes onstage, the pianist bangs down the lid three times, and the diva lets out a scream. One minute, and then the strange encounter is over." - label description.

John Cage
"Works for Piano & Prepared Piano • Vol. I (1943-1952)"
CD
$18.00
Wergo (Germany)
WER 60151-50
includes "A Room" (1943) [versions for piano and prepared piano], "She Is Asleep" (1943) [duet for voice & prepared piano and quartet for twelve tom-toms], "In A Landscape" (1948), "Seven Haiku" (1952), "Totem Ancestor" (1943), "Two Pastorales" (1951), "And The Earth Shall Bear Again" (1942), "Waiting" (1952) [first recording], and "For M.C. and D.T." (1952) [first recording]. performed by Joshua Pierce, piano; Jay Clayton, voice and The Paul Price Percussion Ensemble. recorded during 1977 and 1982.

John Cage
"Works for Piano & Prepared Piano • Vol. IV"
CD
$18.00
Wergo (Germany)
WER 6159-2
performed by Joshua Pierce with Adria Firestone (voice), Borah Bergman, Dorothy Jones, Joseph Kubera, Myra Melford, and Fumiko Miyanoo (pianos). includes "Five Songs for Contralto" (1938), "Metamorphosis" (1938), "Bacchanale" (1938), "A Valentine Out of Season" (1944), "Tossed as it is Untroubled" (1943), "Root of an Unfocus" (1944), "Music Walk" (1958) [first recordings of versions for three and five pianists], "Jazz Study" (ca. 1942 - first recording), and "Experiences" (1945-1948). the two vocal pieces use words by e.e. cummings. "Cage described the sequence of his early work as follows: composition with fixed rhythmic patterns or tone-row fragments (1935-38), composition within rhythmic structures (the whole having as many parts as each unit has small parts, and these, large and small, in the same proportion) (1939-56), and intentionally expressive composition (1938-51). After 1951, charts, chance and indeterminacy - intentionally unexpressive composition - take over." - from the liner notes by Eric Salzman

John Cage
"Works for Prepared Piano"
CD
$18.00
Tall Poppies (Australia)
TP25
includes "Sonatas and Interludes" (1946-50), "Music for Marcel Duchamp" (1947), and "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" (1942) performed by Nigel Butterley on prepared piano with tenor vocals by Gerald English on "Wonderful Widow…". includes notes by Richard Toop.

John Cage
"Works for Violin 4"
CD
$14.00
Mode Records (U.S.)
mode100
"John Cage especially requested that Irvine Arditti team with Stephen Drury, one of Cage's favorite pianists, for these works believing that they would be the 'perfect' interpreters. Mode celebrates our 100th release with this special disc. Volume 4 of Irvine Arditti's masterful traversal of the complete works for violin by Cage combines two of his beautiful early pieces for violin and piano along with Two6, also for violin and piano; and two later works for violin solo. An overlooked gem in Cage's early style, the Nocturne receives a rare CD recording here. The beguiling 6 Melodies is an insistently simple work in which the violin must play (as in much of Cage's music for violin) without vibrato. Its exotic quality is as hypnotic as an Indian raga. Together, these two works offer a wonderful, appealing introduction for the uninitiated to Cage's music." - label description.

John Cage
"The Works for Violin 5"
CD
$15.00
Mode Records (U.S.)
mode118
features "One6" (1990) and "Chorals" (1978) performed by Irvine Arditti. "Irvine Arditti continues his acclaimed traversal of the complete music for violin by John Cage. This disc contains music from two different periods of Cage's composition. In 1975, the violinist Paul Zukofsky learned that John Cage had returned to a more conventional notation after a period of graphic indeterminacy and hoped the composer would write a new work for the violin. Zukofsky contacted Cage with this request and the two met early in 1976 to discuss a series of new works. The main work resulting from this collaboration was Cage's Freeman Etudes (recorded by Irvine Arditti on Mode 32 and 37). But before Cage could begin on that imposing project, he needed to understand better the violin's capabilities. This he did with two smaller works, an arrangement of Cheap Imitation in 1977 (recording by Arditti forthcoming on Mode) and the Chorals. As so often is the case, Cage described his activity in terms of wonder and discovery: 'I study under Zukofsky's patient tutelage, not how to play the violin, but how to become even more baffled by its almost unlimited flexibility.' The Chorals have their origins in Erik Satie's Douze petits chorals, dating from Satie's years of study at the Schola Cantorum (1905-8). Its notation calls for precise microtonality, and demonstrates Zukofsky's suggestion 'to make a continuous music of disparate elements, single tones, unisons, and beatings'. One6 is, perhaps, the most unusual of Cage's violin works. The first note, a single F, is sustained for an extremely long duration. This note is followed, after a short silence, by another F, and then another! Other notes appear eventually, but the result is one of the listener losing all sense of relating one to another, verging on a kind of trance. Liner notes are by Cage scholar Rob Haskins." - label description.

Neil Campbell & Rob Hayler
"In Luck"
CDR
$9.00
Fencing Flatworm Recordings (U.K.)
ff021
"6 tracks, 34 minutes of electro-loopage, starting fairly minimal, then spilling over into glorious drunken forest swirl. Not so much a midway point between Campbell solo and Hayler's Midwich project, more another door opening into somewhere new."

Can
"Cannibalism"
2 x LP
$21.00
Spoon Records (U.K.)
SPOON 001/2
compilation from Can records "Monster Movie" (1969), "Soundtracks" (1970), "Tago Mago" (1971), "Ege Bamyasi" (1972), "Future Days" (1973), and "Soon Over Babaluma" (1974). with Holger Czukay, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit, Malcolm Mooney, Irmin Schmidt, and Damo Suzuki. includes liner notes by Pete Shelley. limited to 1,000 copies.

Bruno Capelle
"Quelques Traces"
CD
$16.00
[self-published] (France)
CBCD 001
digital concrete. looping electrical whispers, dripping water, quick cuts, snatches of real life hidden in the mix, traveling sideways through the broken fragments of recorded sound.

Cornelius Cardew
"Four Principles On Ireland And Other Pieces"
CD
$13.00
Ampersand (U.S.)
ampere7
"in 1975 when Four Principles was released, Cornelius Cardew was comfortably within his third stylistic phase of musical development... unlike the groundbreaking experimental activities introduced through his most famous pieces - 'Treatise' and 'The Great Learning' - the music on Four Principles marked a repudiation of the musical avant-garde which Cardew himself had championed in England. the collection of 13 solo piano pieces on this disc represent a pivotal time in Cardew's work when he was poised between the strictest interpretation of Marxist aesthetics and the development of his voice within those aesthetics. what can be heard is a return to the music Cardew knew and understood: a beautiful music of clarity and eclecticism steeped in pianistic traditions and reformulated through the poetry, folk ballads, melodies, and resistance songs of China and Ireland that underscores his role as one of the most devoted political composers of the 20th century. this CD edition of the long out of print Cramps LP features original track notes by Cardew, new liner notes by Virginia Anderson and previously unpublished photographs of Cardew." - label description.

Cornelius Cardew
"The Peoples Liberation Music Tapes 1973-78 & other songs"
CD
$17.00
Musicnow (Wales)
MNCDx04
"This CD contains rare and historical recordings, previously unreleased, made between 1973 and 1978. Six of the songs are Cornelius Cardew compositions and he sings & plays on all tracks except the three from the 1982/6 memorial concerts. The tracks are uncompromising in their directness and Cardew's pieces are unique in modern song as clear-cut settings of political texts EG: Trk7 'Law of History'.  Other songs include Paul McCartney's -Trk 6 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish', -Trk 1 'El Pueblo Unido' from Chile at the time of the Allende Regime, -Trk 5 'Men Behind the Wire' from the time of internment in Northern Ireland and other banned songs of the 1970s. Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) was an important and influential figure in the British music scene and was known internationally not only for his avant-garde compositions but also as a composer whose political stand was clearly reflected in his music. PLM was formed in 1973 resulting from developments within the Scratch Orchestra in the early 1970s. The musicians involved wanted to use their talents to support the struggles of the working class and people and the band performed at rallies, demonstrations, socials, universities, etc." - label description. performer on this disc: Cornelius Cardew, Keith Rowe, Vicky Silva, Laurie Baker, Geoff Pearce, John Marcangelo, Pip Pyle, Chris Thompson, Hugh Shrapnel, Dave Smith, Alec Hill, Brian Spring, John Hewitt, Tony Hicks, Huw Warren, Walter Cardew, Pete Devenport, Liam Genockey, Horace Cardew, Robert Coleridge, and PCA Singers.

Tristram Cary
"Soundings - Electroacoustic Works 1955-1996"
2 x CD
$35.00
Tall Poppies (Australia)
TP139
a collection of archival recordings by this English pioneer of electronic music who later moved to Australia. probably best known for his work on Doctor Who, Tristram was a very innovative composer as well. the first disc is "Analogue Works 1955-1978", while the second is "Music for Computer 1979-1996". son of the novelist Joyce Cary, Oxford graduate and radar operator for an aircraft carrier in World War II, he made his first electronic studio in 1947 using surplus army equipment, and started working with magnetic tape in 1952.

Kim Cascone
"Residualism"
CD
$12.00
Ritornell (Germany)
RIT 19
"Kim Cascone has been working on a triptych of computer music for the past four years. The first two releases 'Blue Cube' and 'Cathode Flower' were investigations in building sounds directly with computer code. The final installation of the triptych, 'Residualism', takes this technique in a somewhat different direction: instead of embracing long flowing sounds, 'Residualism' contains smaller atomic pieces taken from the first two releases which were then recombined and layered by custom software designed in Max/MSP." - label description.

Kim Cascone & Andreas Berthling
"Rust & Blue Dawn"
3.5" CD
$9.00
Anechoic (U.S.)
a003
"Andreas Berthling and Kim Cascone join forces on their first collaboration of digital soundfile manipulation. The idea to work together on a CD came about during a meeting they had in Berlin last summer. The premise for this piece came from Kim's interest in sonifying data space, i.e., data can be sonified enabling a listener to recognize certain parameters by hearing them. Even more interesting was the ability to listen to raw data and find inherent sonic structures and aesthetic qualities within the soundfiles sent to Kim by Andreas. Taking this idea one step further the main concept for 'Rust and Blue Dawn' was to create a fictional space where data could float and mingle, engulfing the listener in a world where narrative doesn't exist only atmosphere. Carddisc format (87 x 89mm)." - label description.

C.O. Caspar
"Thus Long Lights Light"
CD
$12.00
Kaon (France)
oc98
"Born in 1936 and living in Berlin and Sweden, he combines archaic tone patterns and modern technical equipment in his compositional work. His performances take their form though installation of sound objects in a given space, taking the specific architecture of the room into consideration. 'Sound is experienced as a synthesis of emotion and intuition, of mechanical and digital sound tools. The process to create an artwork is like to give birth to a child, fertilize the brain, work out ideas, realize the subject and finally manage the artifact - a process from irrationality to reality, less from knowledge to product.' Studio and live pieces: 'Anatomy of Melancholy' rec. June 1998 - studio recording - voice, poetry Shawn Caton; 'Great Is Theseus' remix of a bootleg rec. 1997, studio recording; 'Shot Talk' from a sound installation & solo act on Earshot festival, Newcastle, Great Britain, rec. 1990 live; 'Spacial Lust of Hearings' an optosonic installation of 5 blowers and thus 50 pipes, the tuning of the overall acoustic sound is in 50 variations of the upper frequencies, rec. Oct 1996 live, 'Pink Machinery' rec. June 1998, studio recording, voice & poetry Shawn Caton; 'Didge Blues' the sound source is a stiff hose 1 meter long, when blown, the aural impression resembles that of didgeridoo, studio recording, 'Fra Det Skjulte 4.3' from the hidden air rec from solo sound acts on/in an iron oil vessel filled in the bottom with water, sited at a Norwegian harbor, hidden in the rocks in a huge invisible cave and originating from the German occupation, rec. 1987, live." - label description. "Co Caspar might be one of those names you come across, but you never to seem to place right. Despite his age (born in 1936), he has released so far one CD (by Tesco) and now Kaon from France releases his second CD. I had the pleasure to see one of his concerts in 1990 in Newcastle (and of which a small portion is on this CD), and I remember a full stage of pipes and machines. Caspar in the middle doing his 'thing': rumbling with the machines, feedback singing/chanting and feeding sounds through pipes. Quite an impressive sound for one man. This CD is kinda like a retrospective. The oldest piece is from 1987 up until this year [1998]. Much of the work deals with voice manipulations, either fully treated (such as the live excerpt from 1990 or 'Spacial Lust Of Hearing'), or clearly spoken poetry by Shawn Caton. Some of these pieces have a religious undertone, like the processed gregorian choirs on 'Great Is Theseus' or 'Pink Machinary'. Caspar is at his best when he mixes his sound installations with live elements and electronica. This is on pieces as the aforementioned 'Spacial Lust Of Hearing' or 'Fra Det Skjulte' (which was recorded in a Norwegian cave/bunker). Overall this is a nice presentation of the work of someone who is sadly ignored too much until now." - Frans de Waard in Vital Weekly 153

Hervé Castellani
"Flamme"
CD
$14.00
trente oiseaux (Germany)
TOC 981
fifty-two minute minimal soundscape following on from his 3" on Metamkine. very low level movements from what would appear to be acoustic sources, perhaps a delicate action realized with matches over a long span of time. stretches of silence, small movements, an occasional drone of something off in the distance... packaged in a dark blue cover with silver print. recorded at GMVL studios.

Pierluigi Castellano
"Computer Dreams"
CD
$15.00
Orlando Rec. (Italy)
OR 001
Castellano is an Italian composer who studied with Alvin Curran and appeared on his classic "Canti Illuminati" album. interested in electronic, world and jazz music, he has released records on General Music, Mantra Records and Ants and played on records by Giovanni Marini, O.A.S.I., Quartetto Borciani, and Piero Milesi. this 1999 release actually has a very 1980's feel to mixing flowing electronic melodies with jazz elements in an almost progressive manner. these 15 tracks come almost 7 years after "Sevilla X" and are rather different than that album.

Pierluigi Castellano
"Sevilla X"
CD
$15.00
As (Italy)
AS 001
a 76 minute soundtrack from 1992 to an interactive virtual reality tour of an off-shore power plant taking the listener through sea-borne, air-borne and underwater areas. a strange virtual soundscape of bird noises, electronic sounds, etc.

Bo Cavefors
"Barnsliga memoarer / Valpen som ung man"
CD
$14.00
Firework Edition Records (Sweden)
FER 1043
a rare recording of this radical Swedish publisher reading his work. quite i